1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a socket, especially to a socket for a fairy light that has a light-emitting diode (LED) being mounted in the socket.
2. Description of the Prior Arts
A fairy light has a light source and a lens and is generally connected in series to form a fairy light assembly. The conventional light source of the fairy light is an incandescent bulb. The lens covers the incandescent bulb and may be colored for aesthetic effects. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have advantages over incandescent bulbs including improved electrical efficiency and being more reliable than the incandescent bulb and are replacing incandescent bulbs in many applications. However, with progressing manufacturing skills, LED sizes are getting smaller. A new, small LED has the same brightness as a conventional, big LED and saves manufacturing costs and energy but is smaller than the conventional LED.
With reference to FIGS. 8 and 9, a conventional fairy light (80) has a casing (82), a socket (83) and an LED (81A, 81B). The casing (82) is tubular and has a distal end and a light mount. The light mount is formed in the distal end of the casing (82). The socket (83) corresponds to and is mounted in the light mount of the casing (82) and has an outer end and an LED recess (831). The LED recess (831) is formed in the outer end of the socket (83). The LED (81A, 81B) is mounted in the LED recess (831) of the socket (83). The LED (81A, 81B) may 24 be a small LED (81B) being fully mounted in the recess (831), or a conventional LED (81A) protruding from the recess (831).
Although the small LED (81B) may be mounted in the LED recess (831) of the socket (83), the LED recess (831) was originally designed for the conventional LED (81A). Therefore, the LED recess (831) may limit lighting range of the small LED (811B). However, since many pre-existing technologies are designed around conventional LEDs (81A) and these technologies have manufacturing plants and tools equipped for their production, have passed various safety inspections and have attained safety standards, appearance and sizes of the socket (83) are very expensive to redesign for small LEDs (81B).
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a socket for a fairy to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.